


what you wish

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Naruto
Genre: F/M, Minor Frisky Business, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 19:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2823488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His presence in her bed could be strictly her imagination. It doesn't matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	what you wish

**Author's Note:**

> NejiTen was the first pairing I seriously wrote for in the Naruto fandom. I haven't written them in ages. But I miss them, and I'm sorry they didn't get a chance in canon. :(

After the war, Tenten’s life settles into routine. She wakes to days that are long and hard, filled with missions and training and lukewarm blind dates set up by well-meaning friends.

But her nights…

Nights are for seeing Neji again.

She opens her eyes to him sharing her futon. It is not a sight she ever had the fortune to witness in the waking world, but there is no strangeness in his proximity or his state of undress. He wears no shirt, only a loose set of black pants. His hair is unbound and spills over his shoulder when he leans over her. His presence is wonderfully warm, as are his hands, especially the one that rubs at her shoulder, down her side, over the curve of her hip and back again.

Tenten smiles up at him. “Hello,” she says, feeling her harried heart stutter and slow in the warmth of his presence.

“Good evening,” he responds. Here there is no evidence of his final stand. There is no gaping wound across his chest; no blood oozing from his forehead or mouth. His pale eyes are clear and at peace, and completely focused on her.

“I had a terrible date today,” she tells him, shifting so that she lies on her back instead of her side. Neji’s hand stills as she changes position; when she has settled it drifts down again to rest just below her breastbone.

“Yes?” he prompts, voice bland. She’s not fooled—he used to do the exact same thing when they were hatching schemes against Gai and Lee.

“Yes. I had to take him to see Sakura-san today, because he somehow had the great misfortune to trip sideways and fall on a rusty screw.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he says, still at his most inflectionless and therefore giving the entire game away.

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Tenten scolds.

“You accuse without evidence,” he murmurs. The hand resting below her breast slides upwards; he runs his thumb over the soft swell, without particularly coveting arousal, but her breath hitches all the same. He is very good at that—she’s still not certain if it is her overactive, sex-starved imagination that fuels this vision of Neji, or if this is really what he would have done if they had had the chance.

“I don’t need evidence,” she says, narrowing her eyes at him. “There are coincidences, and then there are patterns, and then there’s Ino asking me if I need to see a psychic to have a curse lifted.”

“I am not a curse,” says Neji, affronted. His hands move to her pajamas, reaching for the buttons of her shirt. She lets him: it is getting a little too warm and she just wants to revel in his touch. She runs her hands up his arms, around his back—feels the muscles flex under her fingertips.

“To my friends, you might as well be. Especially when their very well-meaning efforts to help me, quote-unquote, ‘move on’, _mmph_ —” She swallows a groan as he strokes her belly, tracing little circles around her navel. “Keep failing _spectacularly_.”

His hand stills.

“…Is that what you wish?”

Tenten blinks, her head still fuzzy and her skin prickling with the coolness of the air.

“Huh?”

“…a chance to move on. To fall in love with someone else. Not to have your time wasted by a mere specter.”

“ _No._ ”

Her vehemence surprises them both. She sees it in the furrow of his brow and the clench of his jaw.

“I would not interfere, if that was your wish,” he insists, earnest. Tenten closes her eyes, swallows past the ache in her throat.

“I know.” She reaches out and tugs him over her, tilts up her head to receive his kiss.

This is what she misses about him, as much as having a partner against the indomitable force of Gai and Lee; a friend she could rely on absolutely.

She misses the peace between them, this understanding without words.

This what-could-have-been.

This might be a dream, just a figment of her overactive imagination, or perhaps it is really and truly him and her, meeting somewhere in between.

It doesn’t matter. She wakes to a world where Neji is gone and buried. Even if it is only a dream, he is warm and he is here and it is real, in one way or another.

That is all she needs, for now.


End file.
